Casual Fling

Corporate lawyer Jennifer Ryan leads an enviable life. She has a high-paying job, dutiful husband, and a happy family. Tensions between her home and work lives get a little stressed though, and one night she gets caught up in the attentions of a work acquaintance. 

She has the titular casual fling, but instead of being a one-off tryst it turns into a path of betrayal and blackmail. She gets threatened with exposure, and for fear of losing the life she has built she does some sleuthing of her own to learn about her mystery man and his path of villainy.

I picked this book up because I have seen some good things from AWA (Artists, Writers, Artisans) Publishing and I have really enjoyed a number of novels by this series author Jason Starr. I was not disappointed at all, and Casual Fling has all the hallmarks of an entertaining noir narrative: a tight plot, a compelling mystery, sexual tension, and complicated characters. This books really works because Jennifer is a flawed person but also one who owns up to her faults and won't simply be taken advantage of. 

Not just successful because of its plot and characterizations, this book also features strong artwork by Dalibor Talajić and colors by Marco Lesko that portrays steamy moments, tense interactions, action, and human moments in fine fashion. Consequently, it is a book full of moody, grim atmosphere that suits the plot. Casual Fling is a taut thriller told economically, great for noir or mystery fans.

The reviews of this book I have read have been positive. Kobi Bordoley called it "a sleek, well written story." Logan Dalton wrote that it was "a decent erotic thriller and still had plenty of time for tough, nuanced conversations."

Casual Fling was published by AWA Upshot, and they offer a preview and much more about the series here. There is also a sneak peek of the series available on Webtoons. Because of the themes, relationship issues, and adult situations in this book, I recommend it for mature readers.

The Banks

Way back when the COVID-19 pandemic took hold of the country, the comic book industry shut down for a couple of months. In that time, the publisher TKO ran an initiative to both sell their books and also pay a portion from each sale to local comic book stores. That's when I got this book. 

 

I am sucker for a well-done heist story, and The Banks is exactly that, with an intriguing twist. The thieves in this story are a grandmother/mother/daughter team who operate in Chicago, three generations brought together by the family business. This is not to say that all goes smoothly. The youngest and oldest members of the team especially rub each other the wrong way, with constant posturing and calling into question each others' integrity/commitment to the task at hand. 

The Banks themselves are some interesting characters, and much of this book works because they are so compelling. The oldest member of the team, Clara, got her start in the early 1970s, and the flashbacks into her past are great period pieces that look cool and also inform the plot/characters in definite ways. In the present, these women are very selective of their jobs, and they only work with lots of planning and an intention to act as modern-day Robin Hoods. 

The granddaughter, Celia, lives the high-stress and privileged life of an investment banker (a legitimate sort of thief), but when she gets a lead on a high-roller who seems a great target she presents the case to her mom and grandmother. While they are doing their homework, they find they might have the opportunity to avenge Clara's husband, Melvin Banks, which makes this job inevitable for them. In addition to all these goings-on, there is also a hotshot detective who is onto the team of thieves, and she would just love to make her career by taking them down.

As I said, the characters make this book unique, but what makes it work so well is taut plotting replete with great twists and a huge cliffhanger at the end of each chapter. The action is excellently paced and plotted. I just had to finish reading this book once I got started. The artwork is very lively, especially in the flashbacks, conveying emotion and affect even in its more dialogue-heavy sections. I highly recommend this book for any fans of heist/noir stories.

This book was a collaboration between high-profile, accomplished creators, including best-selling author Roxane Gay, illustrator Ming Doyle, and colorist Jordie Bellaire. Gay is best known for her novel Hunger, and has a slew of other publications. Doyle is best known for her work on the series Mara and The Kitchen. Bellaire is a multiple Eisner Award winner with too many credits for me to list here.

All of the reviews I've read about this book have been positive. Caitlin Rosberg called it "an engrossing, interesting read and would pair perfectly with last year’s film Widows for a celebration of unexpectedly emotional female-focused heists." Matt O'Keefe wrote, "Unlike most heist stories, the plot isn’t the central element, the characters are. The comic will ultimately be remembered for its three leading ladies, the lessons they learned, and what readers themselves can take away from the series." LaNeysha Campbell called it "a great graphic novel that also makes a refreshing addition to the heist genre."

The Banks was published by TKO, and they have a preview and much more available here. There is some profanity, violence, and sexuality in this book, so it is recommended for more mature readers. A film adaptation is in the works.

Maids

Maids is a crime tale based on the Papin sisters, Christine and Léa, who worked together as maids until they murdered their employer's wife and daughter. This is a slow burn of a book, only six chapters long, with the first five establishing background and subtly ramping up tension. The events occur mostly in the Lancelin residence, where Christine began work as a maids. She advocated for her younger sister Léa to be hired on as  cook, and the two were reunited in service.

Over the course of the book, we get insights into the young women's lives, from their troubled upbringing to their years in a convent. They were unusually close and frequently got into trouble. As maids, they often were up to some form of chicanery, pilfering items, messing with food, and trying to enjoy some of their employers' finery for themselves. They worked everyday from 6 AM to 7 PM and were also treated shabbily by the Mrs. Lancelin and their spoiled daughter Genevieve. On February 2, 1933 after being blamed for a power outage in the house due to a faulty iron, the sisters brutally murdered Mrs. and Miss Lancelin.

The artwork in this book is spare but masterfully laid out in ways that build suspense to a crescendo. The color palette is warm, which contributes to a muted, dark ambience that lend a drabness to scenes of everyday life and also a sinister edge to the violence. It's a beautifully affecting book, and Skelly gets every ounce of nuance and feeling from her economical imagery. This book is gorgeous and horrible as well as a clinic in storytelling.

And what an opening page!

 This book is the creation of Katie Skelly whose prior comics include My Pretty Vampire, Operation Margarine, Nurse Nurse, and The Agency (NSFW). She speaks extensively about her work on Maids in this interview.

The reviews I have read of this book have been positive. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly summed up, "This subversive horror story will satisfy readers who like their crime stories served with gender and class analysis and a pretty whipped topping." Writing about Skelly's art, Etelka Lehoczky opined, "It's a style that invites you to take it at face value while mocking your inclination to do any such thing. The theme Skelly expresses in every layer of this book is our tendency — or need, really — to underestimate anyone and anything we can't immediately assimilate: maids, girls, comics, comics about girls." Tom Murphy had a different take on the visuals, writing, "Its strong structure and narrative get as close as possible to the bond of blood between the sisters, but the bubblegum realisation on the page creates an uneasy dissonance."

Maids was published by Fantagraphics, and they offer a preview and more information about it here. Due to violence and adult subject matter, I suggest this book for mature readers.

The Ideal Copy

The Ideal Copy is the third book in the Double+ universe I have read, and it is truly amazing to me how Ben Sears manages to create phenomenal all ages comics. In this book, our heroes Plus Man and his robot pal Hank lose their jobs as treasure hunters because they refuse to raid the house of a dead man. Left with little other prospects, the duo eventually take jobs as caterers. Because they are hardworking, they do well serving food and washing dishes. However, at a ritzy hotel gala for a fraternity of weird, obnoxious guys who all have the same haircut and wear the same clothes, they suspect some foul play.

After some snooping around, Plus Man uncovers a nefarious counterfeiting scheme that gets further complicated when a blizzard traps everyone at the hotel. There is a growing cast of characters who get embroiled in this situation, including a little child actor named Mickey who is surprisingly resourceful, and Gene, a grizzled, ex-treasure hunter who sports an eye-patch. Together, this motley bunch takes on the plot with surprising results. There are captures, thrills, and more than enough hi-jinx to keep them and the reader occupied.

As I hope you can see from this short excerpt, The Ideal Copy is a book of beautiful rhythms. The dialogue is snappy and clever. The artwork is gorgeously detailed and geometrical. The colors are vibrant and pop. The characters are complicated and wonderfully unpredictable. Ben Sears is a virtuoso who weaves all these elements together into a sumptuous visual symphony. I loved the derring-do, caper aspects of the plot, and I am very happy to read the note at the end that this duo's adventures will continue. This third book is the best of the bunch, in my opinion, and I am thrilled for more.

All of the reviews I have read about this book have been positive. Rob Clough had much praise for the book and declared it "the best of the three volumes." Tom Baker called it "rip-roaring rib-tickling romp." Ryan Carey opined, "Ben Sears is a cartoonist who intrinsically understands what younger readers want in a story, but the tent he’s hosting his party in a big one, and there’s plenty of room in it for us old-timers, too." Mel Schuit was more lukewarm and wrote, "All in all, fans looking for more of the trademarked Plus-Man-and-Hank antics we saw in the first two books in the series might find The Ideal Copy slightly lacking, but it’s a nice effort on Sears’ part to flesh out his human characters further and begin to hint at events further down the line in the series."

And in case you are interested, my reviews of the past Double+ books are here and here.

The Ideal Copy was published by Koyama Press, and they offer more information and a preview here.

I saw Sears this year at HeroesCon, where I bought this book from him, and he was nice enough to sign it and also draw a sketch. He's a great guy!

Mystery Girl

This book collects the first four issues of the series Mystery Girl. So far, I am not sure there will be further issues, but these were certainly very enjoyable and fun to read, so I hope so. The plot revolves around Trine Hampstead, a young woman who lives in London, England and has a very unique ability. She knows everything. Almost everything actually, because she does not know how she got her abilities. But she can solve pretty much any mystery you have, no matter how mundane or extraordinary, and that is how she earns her keep.

 

As you can see from the excerpt, she comes into contact with some colorful characters, including strippers, police officers, sleuths, rich folk, and assassins. Much of the fun of this book is getting to know those characters and seeing how Trine interacts with them. Also, there is a lot of intrigue as she embarks on an adventure to find a lost expedition that was searching for live woolly mammoths.

The story is a typically jaunty, joyful affair by Eisner Award-winning author Paul Tobin. He has worked on a great many comics I have admired, including Bandette, Gingerbread Girl, and a long run on various Marvel Adventures series. Here, his story is accompanied by playful, colorful artwork by Alberto J. Alburquerque and Marissa Louise. Alburquerque has worked on the series Letter 44, and Louise has colored a number of comic series, most notably licensed properties such as Escape from New York and Robocop. Tobin speaks more about Mystery Girl in this interview.

Most of the reviews I have read about this book have been positive. Jesse Shedeen stated that it first contained "more laid-back character study than high concept drama, though it has its flashy moments." Jennifer Cheng was more critical of it, writing that "Tobin’s script has one twist after another, each of them fanciful and offbeat, but the cost in believability might not be worth the charm and the unpredictability." Chris Sims remarked that "the book moves so fast and so well that it all comes together beautifully."

Mystery Girl was published by Dark Horse, and they have previews and much more available here. There are nudity, sexual situations, and profanity in this book, and I suggest it for readers mature enough to deal with those things.

Heck

The set-up of this book is very much like many noir stories; our hero is visited by a pretty woman from his past because she wants him to do a job. But this book has a pretty infernal twist on that scenario.

In this case, our hero is Hector "Heck" Hammarskjöld, an ex-football player who became estranged from his father, coming home only after the old man's death. What he found was that his father was a mystic and that there was an opening to Hell in his house. Heck turns this circumstance into a vocation, going into Hell to retrieve secrets and messages from the damned for a price.

In this book, Heck is approached by a girl he had a crush on in high school, Amy, whose husband was a thief and a philanderer who died in a horrific and suspicious car crash. She has a question for him, and contracts Heck to go ask him. Heck and Elliot, a former waterboy and current friend/associate go into the infernal realm, which takes Dante's conception as its model, and they are tested beyond belief. They had forgotten just how much an ordeal going through Hell is, even for the living who do not belong to the place (yet). Eventually, the place tests their resolve, sanity, and very being.

In the end, however, they both realize insights about themselves, and the ending took me a little by surprise (in a good way). This story first appeared in installments in one of my favorite publications of the past year, Double Barrel. This anthology series was created by Zander and Kevin Cannon (who are not related to each other) to showcase a couple of serials, this one and Kevin's Crater XV, as well as some shorter works and a series of advice columns for making comics. Both of the main serials are excellent, and I am particularly taken with how Heck takes familiar scenarios and genres and bends them into a thoughtful, dark, suspenseful, and well-plotted tale.

Zander Cannon began this book as a 144 Hour Challenge, an experiment in creating 12 comics chapters over a year by drawing once a month in the space of 12 consecutive hours. Time and circumstances led Zander to abandon the experiment, but he continued with the narrative, drawing it out into a longer and more satisfying length. The latter chapters definitely seem less rushed and are better composed and clearer than some of the earlier ones. Still, I think the book is very well presented throughout, and this is one of my favorite works from the past year.

Zander Cannon has produced a number of graphic novels with Kevin Cannon, including Evolution in collaboration with Jay Hosler, The Stuff of Life with Mark Schultz, and T-Minus with Jim Ottaviani. He also created his own series The Replacement God and worked with Alan Moore on the series Smax. He speaks more about his work on Heck in this interview.

Cannon is an award winning comics creator, and his work here has received much praise. John Seven wrote, "you can enjoy the action and adventure and humor, but there is something at the core of Heck that runs deeper than any of those." Mark Flowers wrote in admiration of some of the cheeky aspects of the book, but added "at heart this graphic novel is a serious morality play, with the conflicted relationship between Elliot and Heck (who feels responsible for Elliot’s condition) at its center." JK Parkin summed this book up as "pretty awesome." In short, it has effective action and mystery elements, but it also has great heart.

A preview and much more is available here from publisher Top Shelf.

Mind MGMT, Volume 1: The Manager

An airplane takes off and when it lands all 120 passengers on board (save one 7-year-old boy) have complete amnesia (good things the pilots remembered how to land the plane). These people cannot remember a single detail about their lives, not marriages, relatives, childhoods. Nothing. Add to the mystery that one of the passengers, one Henry Lyme, cannot be found.

Enter Meru, a frustrated author who cannot come up with a follow-up to her debut true crime novel. She decides she is going to get to the bottom of this "amnesia flight" as her new writing project. In her quest for truth, she finds herself penniless, followed by the CIA, hunted by strange and powerful figures, and confronted with the existence of an agency of spies who have psychic abilities. These agents have such control of world situations that human beings almost seem like pets or even insects to them, which lends a frightening aspect to the proceedings.

Apart from the plot, which has its own amazing array of twists and turns, there is also a guidebook entry embedded in each page. These instructions lend a different angle to plot developments, and over time they become more and more relevant. This attention to detail is simply astounding and helps make this book one weird, wild trip.

This book's creator, Matt Kindt, is prolific of late, producing graphic novels like Red Handed and Super Spy while also writing a good number of titles at DC Comics, including Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E., Justice League of America, and Suicide Squad. He has been nominated for multiple Eisner and Harvey Awards, and is generally a well regarded creator. His writing is full of real world facts and details that lend a realism to the suspenseful situations he creates. His art is sketchy and atmospheric, typically enhanced with watercolors, as you can see in this sample page from the "Mind MGMT Case Files" that end each chapter:

The sketchy aspect of the art contributes to the plot in excellent manner, setting up misdirections and confusion that only sharpen the mysteries and plot twists further. I found this collection of issues #0-6 of the monthly comic book series to be eerie, gripping, and well plotted. There are so many details in this book, and they all contribute to a grand scheme that is not apparent at first. I cannot wait to see where these characters are going and what other secrets will be revealed in future volumes.

Reviews I have read about this book have been very positive. Seth T. Hahne was "incredibly impressed" with Kindt's "seamless, off-handed, perfect world-building." Sean Edgar described how it "reads like a comic that has had an inordinate amount of thought put into it." Leslie at Working for the Mandroid wrote, "This is the most bizarre comic I have ever read, and I could not put it down."I particularly agree with these sentiments, and I felt this book was utterly compelling and engrossing.

This volume of Mind MGMT, like the ongoing comic book series, is published by Dark Horse. There is a preview and more available here.